Discussion questions:
1. How can language teachers use information about their student’s knowledge and skills of language before, during, and after a lesson to better support their language development?
2. Can tests become an integral part of a student’s ongoing classroom development?
3. When was the first standardized tests used?
4. What skills were tested in ancient China?
5. What was the difference between Chinese and Greece testing methods?
6. What competences does language competence include?
7. What does each competence assess in language learners?
8. What is Formative assessment?
9. How could you differentiate Formative and Summative assessment?
10. What are the functions of assessment?
Testing principles.
Determining the Objectives of Testing
Key words: reliability, validity, authenticity, washback, entry performance, summative tests, an elaborate design, weightage, learning outcomes, be free from ambiguity, unintentional clues.
Principles of assessment serve as a guidelines to ensure that the test is useful, appropriate, effective, and plausible. This principles are crucial to be taken into consideration because assessment is an important aspect of educational process which determines the level of accomplishments of students.
There are five general principles of assessment:
practicality
reliability
validity
authenticity
washback
Practicality
This principle refers to the time and cost constraints during the construction and administration of an assessment instrument.[1] Meaning that the test should be economical to provide. The format of the test should be simple to understand. Moreover, solving a test should remain within suitable time. It is generally simple to administer. Its assessment procedure should be particular and time-efficient.[4]
Reliability
The principle of reliability refers to the stability of scores over time and different raters. There are four types of reliability: student-related which can be personal problems, sickness, or fatigue, rater-related which includes bias and subjectivity, test administration-related which is the conditions of test taking process, test-related which is basically related to the nature of a test.
Validity
Validity refers to the tests that measure what it claims to measure.
content validity
criterion validity
construct validity
consequential validity
face validity
Authenticity
The assessment instrument is authentic when it is contextualized, contains natural language and meaningful, relevant, and interesting topic, and replicates real world experiences.
Washback
This principle refers to the consequence of an assessment on teaching and learning within classrooms. Washback can be positive and negative. Positive washback refers to the desired effects of a test, while negative washback refers to the negative consequences of a test. In order to have positive washback, instructional planning can be used.
Planning the Test:
Planning of the test is the first important step in the test construction. The main goal of evaluation process is to collect valid, reliable and useful data about the student.
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